Rav is a triumph of the human spirit
“Sometimes I think, am I worthy of being here?” worried Rav within the first eight seconds of pastry week. He teetered through the rest of the programme, fretting about how quickly Jane had her danishes out of the oven, and whether he would finish last in technical for the third week in a row. (He did.) He was like a man who never took his coat off at the party. We have all been Rav at some time in our lives. But lo! His white choc samosas and Chinese prawns saw him live to bake another day. Indomitable as the Titanic in reverse, with a continued voyage just as unlikely. He’ll probably win.
Master bakers are not master minds
Watching Bake Off contestants attempt mental arithmetic is a delightful combination of confusion, suspicion and optimism, like watching a dog figure out how you faked a throw with the tennis ball. This week was a classic of the genre, as contestants struggled with how many pastry strata their doughs would yield. “There’s a formula,” revealed Benjamina. “Layers of lamination equals layers f, which I think is the number of folds plus one, to the power of number of times you turn,” she expressed with faltering confidence, as if halfway through she’d confused it with the equation for a good night’s sleep.
Candice is candid
Some weeks, Candice looks like she’s trying to do Mel and Sue out of a job. This was one of those weeks. If you’re looking for a double, single or even semi-entendre, Candice will give you one. “It’s good to get your hands in, give your sausages a squeeze,” the seaside dominatrix winked at one point, later handing Mary Berry an enormous black pudding and challenging her to feel the weight. She’s certain to produce a game tart at some point, or worry about when to get her baps out. “Stop fiddling! Leave your balls alone,” Sue commanded her toward the show’s close. Fat chance. Carry On Candice.
There’s more than one way to stretch a filo
In the showstopper, the contestants were charged with sculpting amuse bouches, which translates as “fiddly ol’ finger foods from filo”. First, they were required to stretch the pastry until it was as translucent as the skin on Mary Berry’s hands. Some attacked the task with a rolling pin, others their knuckles, like flamboyant Italian chefs who wanted a pizza the action. Candice demonstrated Mycroft Holmes-levels of laziness and genius by bringing in a pasta rolling machine to do everything for her, and walked off as star baker last night. Woke up this morning, filo fine.
First Brexit, now bakewells
The GBBO tent is a temple of civility in green and pleasant land. But when the contestants were asked to make a bakewell tart, a generational rift opened up. “The winners will be the … aged,” whispered Selasi, while Jane insisted the tart was “classic and classy, rather than old”. “There are people in the room who KNOW how to make a bakewell tart,” griped Benjamina, leaving voiceless the subtext, “And they have made it harder for us to study and live abroad.” Val declared she makes a bakewell every week, while the aggrieved youngers sat on a low wall listening to rap and Googling frangipane. Val then served up a lump of raw pastry. Make of that what you will.
